The end of PLUMPY and Merry Christmas

I suddenly woke up in the middle of the night and remembered I had a blog. Whoops. Diligence is no longer my forte it seems. But now I'm sitting down in a post Christmas bloated trance I thought it would be time for an update...

So PLUMPY came to an end with more of a fizzle than a bang, perhaps especially for me as I escape 5 days early on a plane to England on the 17th Dec. Now there's a story in itself. One notable event is that I finally remembered to put my own chopsticks in my bag one week before the end and then didn't go and use them anywhere. Still they are there now, which isn't particularly useful in England. I made some unpackaged edible Christmas presents - perusing recipes on the internet until I found one that I had all the ingredients for so I didn't have to leave the house. After a happy couple of hours rooting through Value Village I had collected several cute jars (well I thought so anyway) and then in a handy thirty minute window when everybody had left the house I whipped up some buttermilk fudge. Apart from a nervous moment when I thought I'd melted Kala's thermometer (Merry Christmas!) it all went quite smoothly and after a few hours chilling in the fridge it tasted sufficiently like fudge and was in danger of putting you in a diabetic coma after two mouthfuls. Perfect.

So what have been the most important discoveries from Project PLUMPY? Avalon Buttermilk is certainly one (if you have got bored of making lumpy yoghurt), you can get yummy bulk chocolate from Save On and peppermint and yoghurt covered pretzels (not as disgusting as they sound) and yes it is possible to largely live off toast during the day if you're lazy. Nut butters are easy to make and anything other than peanut is tastier. And now I can make bread without looking at a recipe (almost anyway). I'm sure we will incorporate mostly unpackaged domestic behaviour in the new year.

So back to the other story - the flight to England. Earlier in the year I had the joy of being caught up in the Volcano experience so I thought my flight delay quota had been used up. Apparently not. I had already booked a fairly mammouth journey, coach to Seattle, flight to Minneapolis then a flight to Heathrow... It all went smoothly (apart from the guy next to me being terrified of flying), until about a km from Heathrow, where we had been circling for a little while the pilot announced we were off to Dublin as we'd run out of fuel and Heathrow was shut for at least 90 minutes (ha ha). So we landed in Dublin and there we sat. And they said yes just waiting for Heathrow to reopen (again ha ha) and no we can't let you off. 3 hours later (3 hours!! I'd already been travelling for nearly 24) they announced the flight was cancelled and we'd be getting off. Then we did the obligatory lining up in various places in the airport following people with fluorescent vests and clipboards and then got put on a few buses where we eventually ended up in a hotel in Liffey Valley. Which apparently isn't the greatest bit of Dublin but is right next to an enormous shopping centre. We got fed (nice actually) and after a slight debacle about whether we were going to pay for the wine or not got sent back to our rooms. They called at midnight and said 'Be ready at 5am'! Then they called again at 1 am (at which point I think I broke a toe jumping out of bed and kicking the desk) and this time they said 'Be ready at 7am!'. 7am came and they said, 'No no actually it's been cancelled, Heathrow is closed'. At this point after realising it was probably a bit too far to get to Limerick and back in a day to visit Noelle I headed to the shopping centre for change and then on the bus into town for the day. Apart from being bitterly cold I had a very nice day shopping and going to the art gallery and having a beer with Denis (thanks Denis!). Anyway back at the hotel and after similarly choreographed nightly phone calls we all ended up back at breakfast at 6.30 waiting for 'news'. American Airlines managed to come and pick up their guests but no sign of Delta and still no 'news'. The internet connection at the hotel had decided to stop working, slightly unfortunately. I gave up and went back to my (really quite nice) hotel room and started watching Harry Potter. I mean why not. I couldn't work, there was no internet :o) Eventually they called us and came and took us to the airport where we found out 1. we were flying to Manchester and 2. the flight had been delayed because they hadn't been able to find a coach to come and get us from the hotel. Oh the irony. We made it to Manchester and then they put us on another coach to Heathrow, through the snowy snow snow. Amazingly most other people were wisely not on the roads so it was probably one of the quickest journeys from Manchester to Heathrow, ever. Total journey time, Vancouver to Heathrow: 80 hours. Wicked. Luckily I'm here for 3 weeks...